Foreign sex offenders fighting deportation will become even more reliant on the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), Sir Keir Starmer has been warned. On Monday, Labour vowed to prevent perverts from being able to claim asylum.

But fury intensified on Tuesday as critics warned the Prime Minister that Article 3 of the ECHR – freedom from torture – supersedes the Refugee Convention. This, Sir Keir was warned, means more criminals could lodge claims to stay in the UK using human rights laws. Responding to Sir Keir's claim that he is “changing the system” to prevent foreign sex offenders claiming asylum, Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: “This is deeply dishonest by Starmer.

“Foreign criminals will just use ECHR Article 3 instead.

“When we tabled an amendment to stop foreign criminals and those with no right to be here using human rights claims in UK law, Labour voted against it. Starmer won’t fix this.”

The Home Office will bar foreign sex offenders from being granted refugee status, paving the way for more of them to be deported.

It follows the scandal of Clapham chemical attacker Abdul Ezedi, who was granted asylum despite receiving a suspended sentence in 2018 for sexual assault and exposure.

He went on to throw alkaline into the face of his ex-partner and her two children, leading to a nationwide manhunt before his body was found in the River Thames.

Home Office insiders believe their decision to include all sex offences in the legal changes could lead to immigration judges concluding that perverts sentenced to less than 12 months behind bars should be deported because they are not “conducive to the public good”.

The UK previously only treated offences with sentences of more than 12 months as a “particularly serious crime”.

Former home secretary Suella Braverman said: “More hollow words that mean nothing.

“The Prime Minister knows that under the ECHR these criminals can’t be deported even if he really wanted to do that.

“We must leave the ECHR and take back control of our borders.”

Mr Philp added: “This is too little, too late from a Labour Government that has scrapped our deterrent and overseen the worst year ever for small boat crossings – with a record 10,000 people crossing this year already.

“Foreign criminals pose a danger to British citizens and must be removed, but so often this is frustrated by spurious legal claims based on human rights claims, not asylum claims.

“This is a piece of desperate pre-election performance."

Foreign sex offenders will still be able lodge appeals against deportations using human rights laws.

The new changes – announced by the Home Office on Monday – will not prevent foreign crooks from using Article 8 or Article 3 of the ECHR to fight to stay.

Former government adviser Rajiv Shah warned: “This sounds great but will be totally ineffective. Under Article 3 of the ECHR, they cannot be deported even if the Refugee Convention says they could."

He said Conservative MP Edward Leigh "tabled an amendment to the Borders Bill to seek to give primacy to the Refugee Convention but Home Office ministers rejected it because they love the ECHR".

Mr Shah added: “The real issue is Article 3 and how it has been interpreted as being absolute even in cases where the Refugee Convention says criminals can be deported.”

Yvette Cooper jas warned that immigration judges are going too far in their interpretations of human rights laws.

The Home Secretary, who is carrying out a review into Article 8 of the ECHR, said “too much has been left to ad-hoc decisions by the courts”.

Ms Cooper conceded she believes “it is possible to change the way” in which rules around the right to a family life are being interpreted.

The comments come amid fears new plans to ban foreign sex offenders from claiming asylum will fail because the criminals can still fight to stay in the UK using the ECHR.

Ms Cooper told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme: “We do have concerns about some of the individual cases where, as a Government, we’ve obviously disagreed strongly with the conclusions that the courts have come to.

“But there’s a wider challenge here, I think, which is that for too many years, the decisions have been based on a sort of growing ad hoc decisions through the courts driving the way in which the law is interpreted, rather than having a clear framework through Parliament. So we do think it is possible to have a stronger framework that is set out around the way in which international law should be interpreted.”

The Home Secretary pointed to a government review that is “looking at the way in which Article 8 has been operating in the courts”.

Asked whether she is confident that this will change how the ECHR works in this country, Ms Cooper told Times Radio: "I do believe it is possible to change the way in which Article 8 is being interpreted."

Ms Cooper admitted foreign sex offenders could still use European human rights laws to escape deportation.

Asked whether sex offenders could be stopped from using the ECHR to appeal against their removal, the Home Secretary told Times Radio: “Of course, there are often other obstacles that are put in the way of different kinds of returns and removals, but that’s why we’re working so hard to seek to remove those.

“But the first step is to remove somebody’s entitlement to asylum protection in the first place if they have committed these serious crimes.”